This is a state that has made burtal torture standard operating practice.
To me, that is not democratic and threatens my freedoms.

This doesn't even include the world's outrage over their latest terror attack on lebanese civillian towns, destroying the necessities of life, or their collective punishment of palestine.
------------------------------------
A list of UN Resolutions against "Israel"

Quite scarey to me, brainwashing the young with mandatory military service and fanactism (sound familiar?)

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Of course it sounds familiar. That is how Hamas brainwashes Palestinian children into becoming "martyrs" for their "cause".
Anyway, check out the images below. Would you also classify these as "scarey"?

Works both ways! But let me ask you, is it wrong to fight back against collective punishment? Who is the aggressor, the fly or the eagle?

How come you don;t address those facts? How can you compare an army with mandatory participation and a billion dollar funding from the USA against a loose band of locals who have had enough?

THAT IS THE INJUSTICE THAT I AM TALKING ABOUT, AND WHY I STARTED THIS THREAD.

Come on now, this has been going on for FIFTY YEARS.

Google search: israel torture to see how barbaric and ruthless the country is, and how this completely prevents peace, democracy, and freedom. Now, can you make a reply without insulting me? Let's see.

Do you care to make a reply about the facts how they have violated the UN's resolutions for decades, in violation of international law and peace? Does that sound like terrorism to you?

I wonder what kind of mental and moral gymnastics one perform to deny and block out these facts. Is it lazyness, evil, or both?

Last Updated: Wednesday, 25 May, 2005, 16:39 GMT 17:39 UK

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Amnesty slams Israel 'war crimes'

Most Palestinian casualties are unjustifiable, Amnesty says
Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The rights group's report for 2004 says Israeli forces have killed some 700 Palestinians - including 150 children - mostly in unlawful circumstances.

The report lists "reckless shooting, shelling and air strikes in civilian areas... and excessive use of force".

It also condemns the killing of Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants and violence by Jewish settlers.

"Certain abuses committed by the Israeli army constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes," Amnesty's report says.

"The deliberate targeting of civilians by Palestinian armed groups constituted crimes against humanity," it adds.

An Israeli opposition MP has requested an urgent parliamentary debate on the report.

But an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman denied the charge of war crimes and said Amnesty's analysis appeared "one-sided".

Amnesty's accusations against the Israeli army include unlawful killings, torture, extensive and wanton destruction of property, obstruction of medical assistance and targeting of medical personnel.

Amnesty International Report 2005 - Introduction (935K)
A-Z summary of key countries (1MB)
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Download the reader here
Amnesty also says Israel has continued to use Palestinians as "human shields" during military operations, "forcing them to carry out tasks that endangered their lives", despite an injunction by Israel's high court banning the practice.

The report accuses Israel of offering impunity to soldiers and settlers who commit crimes against Palestinians.

"In the overwhelming majority of the thousands of cases of unlawful killings and other grave human rights violations in the previous four years, no investigations were known to have been carried out," the report says.

"The Israeli army and police ... routinely increased restrictions on the local Palestinian population in response to attacks by Israeli settlers," it adds.

Dire situation

In addition to the report's focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Amnesty criticises a number of regimes in neighbouring Arab countries.

Palestinian suicide bombings are "crimes against humanity"

Egypt and Syria are blamed for systematic torture and ill-treatment of political prisoners.

I call it a threat to my freedoms. As if a 2nd or 3rd world country could topple the western military induistrial regime and 'take away our freedoms'. Does anyone beleive this fairy tale that we are told on our news casts?

But a first world terror regime, funded by the USA.../

Now THAT is a serious threat to our freedoms.

Israel Creates Humanitarian Crisis
By MARJORIE COHN

The daily horrors emerging from Iraq have caused a majority of people in the United States to oppose Bush's war there. Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis Israel has created in the occupied territories hovers below the radar for most Americans.

Israel has used the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the capture of a third by Palestinians as an excuse to invade Gaza with overwhelming military force and demolish its infrastructure. What Israel and its benefactor--the United States--really want is to destroy the democratically-elected Hamas government.

During the preceding weeks, Israel instigated events that resulted in the capture of the Israeli soldier. The Israeli military had killed more than 30 civilians, including three children and a pregnant woman.

In the week since the Israeli soldier was captured, Israel's US-supplied artillery has pounded the northern Gaza Strip. Its aircraft struck bridges on the main roads. And its helicopters knocked out Gaza's main power plant, leaving half of Gaza's 1.5 million people and its two main hospitals without electricity and running water. The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have warned of a humanitarian crisis.

Israeli troops and tanks rolled into the southern Gaza Strip, in the biggest raid since Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Israel has kidnapped 64 Palestinian governmental ministers and politicians. It bombed the home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made the astounding statement, "I am deeply sorry for the residents of Gaza, but the lives, security and well-being of the residents of [Jewish] Sderot is even more important to me." The Associated Press quoted Olmert as saying, "I want no one to sleep at night in Gaza. I want them to know what it feels like."

The crisis caused by the Israeli government has upset many Israeli citizens.

Hundreds of Israelis protested outside Olmert's home, denouncing the government as war criminals and demanding an end to the Gaza invasion. "We call for our government to stop targeting Palestinian civilians--the targeting of civilians is a war crime--and start negotiating with the elected Palestinian leaders, not to arrest them," said Yishai Menuhin, a spokesman for the peace group Yesh Gvul.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz commentator Gideon Levy also criticized the Israeli actions. He wrote, "A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization."

Israel's brutal retaliation against Palestinian civilians constitutes collective punishment. Attacks on a civilian population as a form of collective punishment violate article 50 of the Hague Regulations, which provides: "No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible."

The Fourth Geneva Convention also prohibits collective punishment. Article 33 says: "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed." The Convention requires all states party to it to search for and ensure the prosecution of perpetrators of the war crime of "causing extensive destruction ... not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly." Amnesty International called the deliberate attacks by Israeli forces against civilian property and infrastructure war crimes.

Collective punishment is likewise forbidden by Article 75 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. As four US Supreme Court justices agreed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld last week, Article 75 is "indisputably part of the customary international law."

Before Israel's invasion of Gaza last week, Hamas was beginning to retreat from its position that Israel has no right to exist. But Financial Times quoted Efraim Halevy, Israel's most widely respected security expert, as saying, "Why should Israel care whether Hamas grants it the right to exist. Israel exists and Hamas's recognition or non-recognition neither adds to nor detracts from that irrefutable fact."

The state of Israel is in no danger of perishing. Israel is the fourth largest military power in the world. Its "enemy" _ the Palestinian people _ have no tanks, no airplanes, no heavy artillery.

The United States' loyal and consistent support for Israel's policies--to the tune of more than $3 billion in aid per year--has enabled the Israeli government to conduct a war of terror against the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat once told an American journalist, "I'll tell you what this war taught us. It taught us that the real enemy is the United States. It is against you that we must fight. Not because your bombs killed our people but because you have closed your eyes to what is moral and just."

If the US really wished to act on its human rights rhetoric, it should apply political and economic pressure that Israel could not resist. Under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, military hardware sold by the United States can only be used for defensive purposes or to maintain internal security. Israel has used F-16 fighter jets, Apache and Cobra attack helicopters, 15mm howitzers, M-16 automatic rifles, M50 machine guns and many other weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States. Retired US Army General James J. David, in a letter to Colin Powell in January, 2002, wrote: "If you're going to deny the Palestinians weapons to defend themselves, then you must stop all military and economic aid to Israel."

The Foreign Assistance Act prohibits the United States from rendering assistance to the government of any country " which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights."

The United States should halt Israel's aggression against the Palestinians by suspending all economic and military aid to Israel until Israel's military forces have been withdrawn from the occupied Palestinian territories.

But Israel is the US client-state in the Middle East and Bush is just the latest US president to continue that symbiotic relationship.

Hamas has responded to the recent Israeli aggression with threats of retaliation. This probably means the resumption of the suicide bombings which Hamas halted more than a year ago. A statement signed by Hamas spokesman Abu Obeidi said, "We reiterate that the continued aggression and terrorist acts of the tyrannical occupation against the Palestinian people, amid the silence of the international community, will plunge the region in a sea of blood."

A 2002 New York Times editorial said, "The growing harshness of Israeli military practices in the West Bank and Gaza is creating thousands of potential suicide bombers and Israel haters as well as coarsening a generation of young Israeli soldiers."

United for Peace and Justice has called for an immediate end to the assault on Gaza by the Israeli military forces; the cutting off of US financial and military aid to Israel as well as US support for the Israel occupation of the Palestinian territories; and immediate shipments by the US government of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

It is time for the American people to demand that the US government stop its support for Israel's aggression against the Palestinian people.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the American Association of Jurists.

I call it a threat to my freedoms. As if a 2nd or 3rd world country could topple the western military induistrial regime and 'take away our freedoms'. Does anyone belive this fairy tale that we are told on our news casts?

But a first world terror regime, funded by the USA.../

Now THAT is a serious threat to our freedoms.

[/B]

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I have no inclination to start a debate with an irrational moron like you who is blinded by his hatred of the U.S.A. and Israel.
My time is better spent on more productive activities. My only purpose in participating in this thread is to insult you by calling you the moron that you actually are but refuse to acknowledge.
Each and every one of your posts here in the Politics & Religion section is about the evilness of the U.S.A. and its ally Israel and the "atrocities" they have committed, real or imagined. Yet you have never ever once condemned the barbarity of acts committed against Americans and Israelis.
Last time I checked, all the suicide bombings and beheadings in the Middle East were committed by your Muslim buddies, and yet I have not heard a squeak coming out of you decrying this type of inhumanity.
And you expect people here to take you seriously?
This is all for now and I will leave you now to your own devices. You can cut and paste all you want and start posting those silly pictures which you are so adept at finding/creating.
One thing I will make clear though - in my eyes you are and will always be a moron.
Have a nice day.

November 6, 1944: Assassination of Lord Moyne by 2 Stern Gang terrorists, Eliahou Bet-Zouri and Eliahou Al Hakim, masterminded by Yitzhak Shamir http://www.egy.com/landmarks/00-06-08.shtml
July 2, 1946: The Bombing of the King David Hotel masterminded by Menachem Begin, 91 dead
January 12, 1947: Jewish terrorist group Stern Gang (calling themselves by the acronym "Lehi") drove a truckload of explosives into a British police station in Haifa, Palestine, killing four and injuring 140. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(group)
February 29, 1948: Stern Gang (calling themselves by the acronym "Lehi") mined the train north of Rehovot, killing 28 soldiers and wounding 35. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo-Haifa_train_bombings_1948
April 9, 1948: Irgun and Stern Gang massacre 260 Arab civilians in Deir Yassin [http://www.deiryassin.org]
Sept 17, 1948: Yitzhak Shamir's Stern Gang assassinate Swedish peace mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte
October 14-15, 1953: Ariel Sharon commands attack on Qibya, 42 homes destroyed, 60 civilians killed
Holy Week 1954 Israelis desecrate Christian cemeteries in Haifa
July 2, 1954: Israeli Army intelligence "Unit 131," Modin, firebombs civilian post office in Alexandria, Egypt, part 1 of the Lavon Affair, named after the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon,
July 14, 1954: Israeli Army intelligence "Unit 131" bombs libraries in Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt, part 2 of the Lavon Affair, named after the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon.
October 29, 1956: Israeli troops invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula
October 29, 1956 terrorist atrocity in Kafr Qasim, 47 cold blooded murders by Israeli border guards.
1966, village of Sammu attacked, 18 dead, 100 wounded
1967 USS Liberty attacked 34 sailors dead, 170 wounded -- not civilians, but non-participants
June 5, 1967, "In danger of being attacked" Israel launches war, 759 Israelis and 15,000 Arabs dead
1969 Israeli bombing of school Bahdr al Baker, 75 children dead, 100 wounded
March 1, 1970, Israel invades Lebanon, civilian death toll unknown
Sept 8, 1972 Israeli bombing of Syrian and Lebanese civilians, "hundreds dead"
1974: Israeli terrorists attack civilian aircraft; desecrate Christian shrines including Church of the Holy Sepulcher, stealing the diamond crown of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary
1975-1980: numerous Mossad assassinations of Palestinian scientists, journalists, and others
August 1982: 20,000 civilians dead from Israeli bombing of Beirut on the orders of Ariel Sharon
September 1982 massacres of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, 800 women, children, and elderly killed
October 1982: Israeli terrorists bombed houses, cars, and offices of three elected mayors of the West Bank cities, Nablus, Ramallah, and Al Beireh
1984 kidnapping of Palestinians on the high seas off merchant vessels
1986 Palestinian cartoonist, Naj Al Ali, assassinated
April 1988 Israeli commandos invade the home of Khalil Al Wazir, a Palestinian leader, and shoot him in bed
February-March 1989 Israeli jets bomb Beka Valley, 15 children killed, more adults
April 14, 1989 Israeli police and armed Jewish settlers attack disarmed Palestinian village, Nahalin, 8 killed, 50 wounded
February 1994 Kach Party terrorist Baruch Goldstein uses assault rifle to murder 29 Palestinians worshipping at Hebron mosque, rabbis praise his actions and then Prime Minister Yitshak Rabin gives permission\ for a memorial to honor Goldstein
February 27, 1994 Israeli Mossad bombs Our Lady of Deliverance Maronite Catholic Chuirch at Jounieh, Lebanon, 11 killed.
April 11, 1996 Israeli massacre of 170 civilians at Qana, Lebanon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Grapes_of_Wrath
April 14, 2000, homes of civilians bulldozed (actions admitted by Ha'aretz and praised by the canonized "Holocaust survivor" Elie Wiesel)
Dec. 10, 2001. "Palestinian activist Muhammad Sidir, 24, had his face maimed and burned and his eyes blinded by a U.S. made Israeli helicopter firing missiles in a crowded intersection during an assassination attempt on Sidir. Two Palestinian children died in the attacks and two other children were injured. Israeli helicopter gunships hovered over the carnage for five minutes, preventing immediate medical attention from being administered to the wounded and dying." [http://www.revisionisthistory.org/palestine7.html]
December 17, 2001 Israeli troops murder Palestinian activist Yacoub Aidkadik
January 14, 2002 assassination of Palestinian resistance leader Raed al-Karmi
January 24, 2002 assassination of Elie Hobeika who was preparing to testify at a war crimes trial in Belgium against his former ally Ariel Sharon regarding Sharon's masterminding of the Sabra and Chatila massacres
March 6-16, 2002. 200 Palestinian civilians slaughtered in Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza ghettohttp://www.revisionisthistory.org/palestine51.html
March 30, 2002, 5 Palestinian bank guards summarily executed in Ramallah
April 8, 2002 et seq., bombardment of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, the only major church in the Holy Land that had survived intact from the early Christian period
April 9, 2002 (ironically on Yom Has Shoa, "Holocaust Remembrance Day"): Israeli massacre of 52 Palestinian civilians in Jenin
May 20, 2002 Mossad car bombing of Mohammed Jibril, Palestinian leaderhttp://www.revisionisthistory.org/palestine7.html
March 16, 2003 Rachel Corrie, 23, was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza, as she protested against house demolitions http://www.rachelcorrie.org/http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/03/1583823_comment.php
April 11, 2003 Tom Hurndall, 21, from London shot in the head by an Israeli soldier as he tried to help a Palestinian woman and her children. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,936305,00.html
August 4, 2005 timed precisely to interfere with Gaza withdrawal, an Israeli Army "deserter" (or operative?) and Kach Party member Eden Natan-Zada, using an assault rifle, attacked a bus killing 4, wounding 12 Palestinians [http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050804-110426-6510r.htm]
July-August 2006 Israelis bomb Lebanon for 33 days, preliminary death toll 1,300 <http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1219684.ece>, Lebanon's infrastructure destroyed, termed "bombed into the stone age."
November 18, 2006 Swedish human rights worker beaten, 5 Palestinians (including a 3-year-old child) beaten and stoned while the assailants chanted, "We killed Jesus and we'll kill you too!" http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/11/18/hebron-day-06/
February 6, 2007 Foul mouthed drunken Talmudist harasses Palestinians on their land, "You and your f@#king Jesus can kiss my a$%....We killed Jesus and we're proud of it..." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e1842edc4f
2007 Amnesty International Report "Increased violence between Israelis and Palestinians resulted in a threefold increase in killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces. The number of Israelis killed by Palestinian armed groups diminished by half. More than 650 Palestinians, including some 120 children, and 27 Israelis were killed. Israeli forces carried out air and artillery bombardments in the Gaza Strip, and Israel continued to expand illegal settlements and to build a 700-km fence/wall on Palestinian land in the Occupied Territories. Military blockades and increased restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of Palestinians and the confiscation by Israel of Palestinian customs duties caused a significant deterioration in living conditions for Palestinian inhabitants in the Occupied Territories, with poverty, food aid dependency, health problems and unemployment reaching crisis levels. Israeli soldiers and settlers committed serious human rights abuses, including unlawful killings, against Palestinians, mostly with impunity. Thousands of Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces throughout the Occupied Territories on suspicion of security offences and hundreds were held in administrative detention. Israeli conscientious objectors continued to be imprisoned for refusing to serve in the army. In a 34-day war against Hizbullah in Lebanon in July-August, Israeli forces committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes. Israeli bombardments killed nearly 1,200 people, and destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes and other civilian infrastructure. Israeli forces also littered south Lebanon with around a million unexploded cluster bombs which continued to kill and maim civilians after the conflict." http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Re...th-Africa/Israel-and-the-Occupied-Territories
June 1, 2007 "Israeli troops shot and killed two 13-year-old Palestinians [Ahmed Abu Zbeida and Zaher al-Majdalawi] near the Gaza-Israel border fence Friday, saying they were crawling toward the barrier in a ``suspicious manner.'' The boys had told their families they were going to the beach. (Guardian, June 1, 2007)"http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6677257,00.html
Except as annotated, see Moshe Lieberman & Michael A. Hoffman II, The Israeli Holocaust Against the Palestinians, available at:http://www.revisionisthistory.org/c...2662.23482*px29R4&product=Books_and_Pamphlets

Of course it sounds familiar. That is how Hamas brainwashes Palestinian children into becoming "martyrs" for their "cause".
Anyway, check out the images below. Would you also classify these as "scarey"?

You truly are a first rate moron.

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LOL! A new zino boy is here! Clear the way guys!!!

No buddy...Killing 800+ kids, demolishing homes on top of their inhabitants, confiscating and stealing land that happened to belong to farmers for thousands of years and happen to be the only source of food and income for their extended families, uprooting trees, poisoning water, locking total populations in sealed enclaves, sniping children coming from schools, slapping and spiting at a child's father or mother, having tens of pregnant women dying on your check points tends to brainwash a child brain!!

I am no fan of Isreals tactics but come on, muslims commit that many atrocities on a monthly basis.

The muslim world is completely infantilized and offered up some kind of excuse as to why they behave in such an atrocious manner, you muslims blame everyone else for your own problems and refuse to take resonsibility for your own crimes.

Why is that nearly all muslim countries are third world shitholes run by dictators?

Do you blame Isreal or do you blame your own short comings as a collective society?

Name one accomplishment muslim society has given the world in the last 400 years.

Quote from TorontoTrader2:

This is a state that has made burtal torture standard operating practice.
To me, that is not democratic and threatens my freedoms.

This doesn't even include the world's outrage over their latest terror attack on lebanese civillian towns, destroying the necessities of life, or their collective punishment of palestine.
------------------------------------
A list of UN Resolutions against "Israel"

While I understand everyone's frustration regarding the plight of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza, I have a few thoughts on the matter.

Israel, while some might view their reactions and actions as tough, have no choice. If the tables were turned they would be murdered en mass. Maybe not by the majority of palestinians, or at least not all, but by the militants that are bent on destroying Israel. Anyone who feels that Israel is one sided in their supposed acts of terror are clearly misguided and irrationally biased.

It is not Israel's responsibilty to take care of a people whose own governments have been so corrupt that they steal from their own.

Though I am anything but a supporter of Hamas, I do understand that they are without a doubt looking out for the best interests of their people from their limited scope of site, as opposed to the secular governments of the past. What they don't understand is that by acting in such an extremist fashion, they not only alienate the majority of the outside world, but they alienate the very arab and european nations that they are depending on for popular support in order to accomplish their goals. What they should be focused on is food and basic needs of their people.

Israel is doing what any nation would do, defend its own people. It should not and can not be in Israel's policy to allow all Palestinians the same rights at the risk that one out of many could possibly cause harm to Israelis. Whats wrong with you people who believe otherwise.

Ariel Sharon, while some might think he was harsh etc etc, was the only Israeli leader in the recent past that Arab nations actually feared. In such a small piece of land that is under constant threat that is an invaluable quality.

All on this thread who are condemning Israel would cheer if the opposite were occuring. If Israel was on the receiving end of these actions that they are so disturbed by, they would not be saying in their most lucid moments that Israel doesnt deserve it. I am a Zionist and a Jew and clearly a supporter of Israel, but I do understand the Palestinian situation, I trully wish them the very best, I do not however wish them that at the harm of any Israeli.

At least be honest if you hate Israel. Thats fine but don't hide your hatred in morality.